to exercise unsparing severity. A
casuistic proceeding was necessary as well as a firm union of the
bishops as pillars of the Church. Not the least important result of the
crises produced by the great persecutions was the fact that the bishops
in West and East were thereby forced into closer connection and at the
same time acquired full jurisdiction ("per episcopos solos peccata posse
dimitti"). If we consider that the archiepiscopal constitution had not
only been simultaneously adopted, but had also attained the chief
significance in the ecclesiastical organisation,[254] we may say that
the Empire Church was completed the moment that Diocletian undertook the
great reorganisation of his dominions.[255] No doubt the old
Christianity had found its place in the new Church, but it was covered
over and concealed. In spite of all that, little alteration had been
made in the expression of faith, in religious language; people spoke of
the universal holy Church, just as they did a hundred years before. Here
the development in the history of dogma was in a very special sense a
development in the history of the Church. Catholicism was now complete;
the Church had suppressed all utterances of individual piety, in the
sense of their being binding on Christians, and freed herself from every
feature of exclusiveness. In order to be a Christian a man no longer
required in any sense to be a saint. "What made the Christian a
Christian was no longer the possession of charisms, but obedience to
ecclesiastical authority," share in the gifts of the Church, and the
performance of penance and good works. The Church by her edicts
legitimised average morality, after average morality had created the
authority of the Church. ("La mediocrite fonda l'autorite".) The
dispensations of grace, that is, absolution and the Lord's Supper,
abolished the charismatic gifts. The Holy Scriptures, the apostolic
episcopate, the priests, the sacraments, average morality in accordance
with which the whole world could live, were mutually conditioned. The
consoling words: "Jesus receives sinners," were subjected to an
interpretation that threatened to make them detrimental to
morality.[256] And with all that the self-righteousness of proud
ascetics was not excluded--quite the contrary. Alongside of a code of
morals, to which any one in case of need could adapt himself, the Church
began to legitimise a morality of self-chosen, refined sanctity, which
really required no